Ruth Underwood

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Philip Marsden: Truth Seeker

Philip Marsden is a writer who travels. But can the world ever be written without betraying its reality? He speaks here about the importance of the truth, and about how much stranger than fiction it can be.

There are major obstacles in ‘writing the world’. The world must be ‘filtered’, to some extent; obstructed by differences in language and by the very fact that nothing can be seen objectively.

With this in mind, one has to wonder how faithful a depiction a travel book can ever be. Equally, the ethics of the westerner exploiting foreign countries for the sake of his own creativity might be brought into question.

These issues do not faze Philip Marsden. For him the practice of travel writing is much simpler. He writes what he sees.

His latest book, The Chains of Heaven, is an account of his journey on foot through northern Ethiopia. On setting out, his plan was “to walk in this area, where I hope I’ll find what I want, which is ordinary life but with all its extraordinary aspects.”

It is truth that is extraordinary. He argues that what really happens is better than anything your imagination might conjure. “The true and the real have a magic to them which you tinker with at your peril.”

Marsden seeks his truths in foreign lands; the magic in his writing stems from the reality he finds abroad.

“The things that sparked me off were the exotic, things a long way from these shores,” he says.

But there must be a point at which the writer questions himself about the validity of travelling for the sake of one’s art, a point at which western guilt begins to plague him. Marsden denies this, claiming that “the huge gap between the two worlds is much more obvious from a distance.” He says that there is a basic human exchange that happens when he travels.

“I’m curious and respectful of their lives, just as they’re curious about my life. You get to remote places and people are interested and appreciative that you’re there. The fact that I have a car at home and a big house just doesn’t matter.”

Travelling to exotic countries is bound to involve a communication barrier. As Marsden says, “Almost by definition the places that are interesting to visit are those which have quite obscure languages.” He does admit that some things are lost in translation. He speaks Amharic, but doesn’t speak Tigrinya, the language spoken in the north of Ethiopia. How does this affect his capturing of the scenes he witnessed there?

“Of course something is lost, but there’s an awful lot that happens in mood and in movements and in the way people are…You gain something just by being there.”

Despite this, he does recommend learning at least some of the language of the country visited. “A little bit of language goes a long way. Apart from enabling communication, it gives you an ‘in’ with the people. If you show that you can speak to them and that you’ve made the effort to do that, it’s a huge ice-breaker.”

Language is not the only obstacle to conveying the reality of a place — it can be tainted simply by being seen through the eyes of an onlooker. However, Marsden accepts his position on the periphery. He admits, “I am, of course, an outsider.” But he argues that this can be an advantage. “There are times when people articulate things which they never would to local people, often they’re more candid.”

Marsden writes what he sees. He doesn’t move anecdotes around in the narrative to suit his purpose. He says, “If you start to play around with the details, you lose something.” This, he says, is a rule that he would advise sticking to. “Not,” he says, “because it has to stand up in a court of law, but because if you break the rules you are doing yourself a disservice.”

But however true the details are, Marsden admits that those details are selected, and that in selecting some and excluding others, the truth or reality is abstracted.

His belief in seeing the world seems almost as strong. In The Chains of Heaven he writes,
‘If there is any purpose to our time on this earth, it is to understand it, to seek out its diversity, to celebrate its heroes and its wonders – in short to witness it.’ (p.21)

Travel first inspired him to write, 20 years ago. “I was so amazed by it that it spilt over and that, I realised, was the urge to write.”

The motivation remains the same. He says, “It’s not even an urge to tell people. It’s like a saucepan overflowing, it bubbles over and you’ve got to do something with it, because it seems too big to contain in oneself, the vessel isn’t big enough.”

It is the urge to write and not to inform that inspires him. He says, “I do it because it is the most fulfilling, satisfying thing I can think of to do. I love it.”

The Chains of Heaven is published by HarperCollins, November 2005, rpp £14.99.